Month: December 2007

Here we go again for another round. This is my fourth year in a row to do this, and I daresay, it’s always fun looking back at what I’ve read. My apologies in advance for the ridiculous length, but what can I say? I read a lot. Maybe too much, if that’s possible.

I play by Teacher Dave’s rules–these are all books completed this year. Format is date completed: author, title (# of pages). Asterisk means I’ve read it before. This is actually the first year I’ve kept track of book length, so this should be interesting.

Pages read: 22,355, which is 319.36 pages per book, or 61 pages per day. This is a little frightening. (Keep in mind, though, that quite a few had full-page illustrations, which brings the total down some. But still.)

Most read author: J.K. Rowling, of course (hey, I had to reread the series before Deathly Hallows came out…), with all seven of hers. Good on ya, Jo. Mark Twain comes in second with five, as I took an entire class on his works (unfortunately).

Top 5:

Cormac McCarthy, The Road. Bleak as all get out, and not much dialogue to speak of (uh, no pun intended), but well-written. You get immersed in the harsh realities of the post-apocalyptic world along with the two main characters, a father and son, and the end made me want to cry. Really. This book deserves the Pulitzer Prize it got last year.

Margaret Edson, Wit. PUNCTUATION MATTERS, DANG IT. I gasped more than a few times while I was reading it, at how good it all was, how beautiful and tragic it was. Must see this performed soon.

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Ever since one class I took in college that had a unit on sustainable agriculture, I’ve been interested in the subject ever since. Kingsolver and her family take it one further by growing almost all their own food or getting it from their neighbors. If it sounds kind of dry and hippieish, it’s not; Kingsolver’s always honest about how things worked, but still manages to make it sound fascinating and cool the whole time. It made me want to go get my hands dirty. Oh, and her husband and college-age daughter pitch in with a few words, too, which makes it even better for me.

Tim O’Brien, Going After Cacciato. Great details and descriptions of life in the jungles of Vietnam, and an ending that makes you go “Huh?!” (in a good way). Love, love, love this book, and because of it I’m looking forward to reading The Things They Carried even more than I already was.

Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away. To be honest, I was never really impressed by Flannery O’Connor until I read this book, and I am now absolutely in love with her work. The professors who taught me this weren’t big fans of the characters, and to be honest neither am I, but I get what she’s doing here: Those characters I don’t like? I am just like them, all of them, broken and messy and arrogant. But there is grace and redemption at the end, a purifying fire, and that is what matters. Lovely piece of fiction, and one I recommend.

This is the dark side of the tale we tell,
The Christmas story, beautiful to hear–
Except for those who drew from David’s well,
Who lived in Bethlehem that fated year
When God’s Son came to earth. Lo, Rachel mourns
For all her children, killed by Herod’s sword,
A nation brought by pagan kings to scorn,
A bloody outcry risen to the Lord.
And down to Egypt, towards the land of sin
Emmanuel goes down, an Israel new–
A pagan king would slaughter once again
A son of David, son of Jacob who
Has borne our griefs and shame and sorrow, so
To death and slavery we shall never go.

1. Happy second day of Christmas, folks. If two doves and a partridge show up, don’t be surprised. We had a good holiday at the McClendon house–or, more properly, at the hospital, where my mom still is, but is getting better. Yesterday did a lot for her emotionally, which is probably one of the better things that could have happened. 🙂 (Besides, my dad, I think, earns extra brownie points because he got her this, because she’s been on such a rough journey with her health the past few months…yeah. There were tears involved. And why not?)

Also, my cousin is now engaged, and to a really sweet girl that we’re all glad to add in to the clan! Congratulations to them. *throws confetti*

2. So. I have joined the ranks of the iPodded (iPotted? like, potted plants?), thanks to the great generosity of my parents–silver 4GB Nano, for the curious. If you don’t know this about me, I have the admittedly bizarre habit of naming my electronics (my previous mp3 player was called Yoshimi, for example), and I’m having a hard time with this one, so submissions are welcome. (I am seriously considering Hieronymous, after the patron saint of librarians, but if you guys come up with something better, I’ll take it.)

This could be dangerous.

Um, also, a copy of the Company soundtrack, the DVD of this movie, and a great-looking book called Twentysomeone (one of the co-authors is the RUF pastor at OU). And lotion from my aunt, and a sweater from my grandma. I know it’s not about the stuff, but the love behind it, so I feel pretty significantly loved, which something we all need to feel.

3. Also, my parents got a Roomba from my brother and sister-in-law (which is pretty awesome, and our floors are now really, really clean), and my dad has been having too much fun with it today. We are obvious gadget-tech people at my house, which I think may also explain the abundance of geekery (or is it the other way around?).

4. So, after doing poems every week at Kaleo for Advent (based on the lectionary, if you were wondering), I think I may continue to post one every Sunday here on the blog, at least for the rest of this church year. It was a good exercise for me, since it made me chew on the Word a lot, and apparently it’s been encouraging to a lot of people (which is good to know), so we’ll see what happens.

5. 2008 is almost here already! Is anyone else slightly weirded out by that? 2007’s been a pretty interesting year–uneventful for me, mostly, punctuated by a couple of major events, but everything hopefully has been driving me, driving all of us, further toward Christ. I’m learning how to repent, how to see Jesus instead of myself, and I pray the same for all of you in the upcoming year. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary and good.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Christmas, to the Christian, is a subversive holiday.

Why? Because it goes against everything the world system exalts and glorifies. It defies logic: Virgins and post-menopausal women having babies? Angels? Mysterious signs? It defies self-glorification: The God of glory takes on the form of a peasant baby, who likely gets ridiculed as an illegitimate son most of His life. It defies the dichotomy we want to make between the spiritual and the physical: The eternal Word that spoke matter into existence takes on matter Himself. It defies celebrity and status: Shepherds get what’s going on, while the rich and powerful almost miss it completely. And yet it defies ascetism, too: Astronomers bring gold and treasure out of reverence to a king.

And when we declare that “the Lord is come”, we have to remember that Malachi asked us, “Who may abide the day of His coming? For He is like a refiner’s fire and a launderer’s soap.” Who can abide His coming? Who can abide God with us, who can stand up to His drawing near? The ones who have eyes to see, eyes that He both demands and gives. They have joy; God and sinner are indeed reconciled.

So, ye faithful, ye people of God, come and behold Him, born the King of angels. And adore Christ the Lord, for He is worthy.

Saints and sinners, whores and adulterers,
Have sons and daughters, marry and give in marriage,
Through long and longer days of waiting in
Slavery and judgment
Until a lost son of royalty, a Nazarene carpenter,
Has visions like his namesake of old,
A young man dreams dreams of the kingdom coming,
And he, like the patriarch, suddenly sees
That what looks like evil may be God working for good.

So this righteous son of David marries a
Daughter of Zion who carries now
Not David’s son but David’s Lord–
A new Adam to bring paradise,
A new Abraham to make sacrifice,
A new Moses to give and keep the law,
A new Joshua to conquer for us all–
The generations of Jacob’s children finding their
Fulfillment in one who now rests inside Mary’s womb.